


The Garden At Midnight

by j_gabrielle



Series: Potter's Hand [4]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Age Difference, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Romance, two idiots in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-28
Updated: 2013-04-28
Packaged: 2017-12-09 19:55:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/777402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/j_gabrielle/pseuds/j_gabrielle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Unable to decide whether the bright burn in her chest was disgust or shame or something she has yet to give words to, Freddie keeps watching as Will leans back and cups the man’s cheek with one hand; the action so tender and intimate, that Freddie feels like she is disturbing something fragile and private.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Garden At Midnight

**Author's Note:**

> For michelle, EnderWxx, and Daizy
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> This is all your faults <3
> 
>  
> 
> (Iluguysrly)

It isn’t as if she isn’t aware of what her schoolmates call her; Freaky Reddie Freddie.

Juvenile, immature, yes. If popular culture were to be believed, if those sympathetic celebrities endorsed PSAs were to be taken as gospel, high school will be a lifetime away once she was in college kicking ass and taking names.

 _God_ , it couldn’t come too soon.

Jumping the last two steps of the stairs, she slips into the shadow of the courtyard and into the garden. Tying her mess of red curls back, she keeps to the shade of the trees before ducking behind the statue of an eagle. Distantly, she could hear the sounds of cars in the street.

Fuck if she knew what possessed her to come on this trip. It was lame to the max, filled with tourist trap visits, and an endless trudge through one ornately designed hall to another. Freddie isn’t stupid and isn’t blind to see that if she wasn’t an influential member on the yearbook committee, the trip organizers would have ‘conveniently’ forgotten to ask her. On the plus side, her roommate Lisa Kemp was sleeping in her boyfriend’s room for the rest of the hell ride and all she had to do was convince the chaperones that she was in the room when they made their rounds before lights-out.

Flicking her lighter, she lit the last of her cigarettes. Freddie had stolen a new pack from her mother’s new boyfriend while he slept on the couch. Sighing in relief at the hit of nicotine, she exhaled, leaning her body against the line of the wall. If she moved slightly she would’ve been visible from the street but not from the hotel.

Freddie couldn’t deny that there was something infinitely beautiful and so very sad about Vienna. Something still brewing and evolving underneath its’ veneer that she still hasn’t understood, and is coming to accept that perhaps is not her place to. Was it like this with all the grand cities of Europe? Were they all a complex contradiction of mystery and truths? She longed to see them all with her own eyes, to walk in their streets and drown in their stories. Freddie was bored, and she wanted something interesting to happen.

“...old this.”

A hushed voice said from a few feet away. Frowning, she stubbed out whatever remained of her cigarette, sliding to stand up. Two figures stood on either side of the fence, the one on her side passing a jacket over. She’d checked! Everyone was supposed to be asleep!

Tilting her head, she squinted in the dim lighting and has to bite down on her cheek to stop her making a sound. Instantly her left hand itched for her camera, missing it like a phantom limb. Calming herself, she watched as Will Graham picks the lock of the hidden garden gate.

Of all the people that she thought had the gumption to do this, Will Graham was not one of them. In fact, he was not even remotely close to that solar system. He kept to himself, kept out of everyone’s way, head down and rarely spoke unless spoken to.

Freddie remembers him because he had been the one to guide her to the admin office on her first day in her new school. Brown floppy hair, big nerdy glasses that kept him from making any proper eye contact, he was polite but distant. Freddie remembered Will because from the moment she saw him; he was all she looked for in the crowds and the hallways of St Sebastian. It was pathetic, really, and Freddie keeps it hidden and locked away in a place she can never find herself. They never spoke again, though not for lack of trying on her part.

Everyone knew that he went to a shrink to cure his crazy, and nobody ever lets him forget it. Will was a target fodder for easy pickings. In fact, the missing Liam Trancy, jock boy extraordinaire made it his daily goal to torment him. Freddie would’ve had tried to help Will out, but…

Will makes a soft noise of triumph and it is then that Freddie catches a closer look of the second man. Older, there was a strange hue to his eyes that was evident even from where she hid. He is well-dressed for this part of town, spoke so softly that as much as Freddie strained, she couldn’t hear what passed between them. She keeps looking as Will swings the gate open as slightly as he could to jar the vines that creep over it little. They move out of sight. Still curious, Freddie followed them as far as the trees could hide her.

“Five days more.” Will says.

“Yes.”

Freddie felt her heart leap to her throat, feeling the warm blush on her cheeks at the sight of Will kissing the older man passionately. Unable to decide whether the bright burn in her chest was disgust or shame or something she has yet to give words to, she keeps watching as Will leans back and cups the man’s cheek with one hand; the action so tender and intimate, that Freddie feels like she is disturbing something fragile and private.

“Come now. I have prepared a feast for you.” The man says, grinning as he leans in for another kiss.

And the most extraordinary thing happens; Will Graham throws his head back and laughs. Freddie is entranced, enraptured by the sight of him so happy and free.

“Thank you. You shouldn’t have.” He sighs in a manner that gives Freddie reason to believe that this was probably not something that the strange man has not done before. “You spoil me too much.”

The man offers Will his arm and Freddie watches; amazed as he takes it and they make their way down the street. Desperate to know more, to see more of this… seemingly other side of Will, she breaks from the shadows and stand under the light to catch a last glimpse of Will and his strange lover. But there was no more to be had.

Disappointed, and strangely angry, she turns and bolts back to her room. She doesn’t bother undressing, pulling the covers over her as she vaulted into her bed. Freddie tries to sleep, tries to make sense of what she’d seen. She tries to tell herself that the pain and horrible ache in her isn’t because her heart was breaking for a boy who doesn’t even know she exists.

 

 

 

 

[fin.]

**Author's Note:**

> I never meant to write Lounds as a sympathetic character
> 
> ;A;
> 
> I failed.


End file.
